“THE PEBBLE OF MANY FACES”
A defining moment for mankind at Makapans Valley?
In 1925, explorers of a cave at Makapans Valley in South Africa discovered bones of Australopithecus africanus, a predecessor of modern humans who lived there some three million years ago. Found in situ (in context with) with the bones, was a waterworn reddish-brown jasperite pebble that bears an uncanny resemblance to a human face.
The Makapans Valley pebble, or the “Pebble of Many Faces”, is a 260-gram jasperite cobble with natural chipping and wear patterns that make it look like a crude rendition of a human face. The nearest known source of this variety of stone is 32 kilometres away from the cave, which means that one of the australopithecine, or possibly another hominid, who took refuge in the rock shelter at Makapans Valley must have noticed the pebble in a stream bed and, awestruck by the ‘face’ on the stone, brought it back for safekeeping.
Though it is definitely not a manufactured object, it has been suggested by some, that having been recognised as a symbolic face by the hominid who brought it back to the cave, it is possibly the earliest example of symbolic thinking or aesthetic sense in the human heritage. This would make it a candidate for the oldest known manuport dated at between 2.5 and 2.9 million years ago.
The teacher Wilfred I. Eizman found it in a dolerite cave in the Makapan Valley in 1925. Almost 50 years later, Raymond Dart was the first to describe it in 1974.
Makapans Valley (previously known as Makapansgat), is a world heritage site and has been nominated to be included in the expansion of the Waterberg Biosphere’s new borders.
Thanks to Dom’s Maps and Wikipedia for the picture and information about the pebble.
https://www.donsmaps.com/makapansgatpebble.html